Sara Charney, Chair of the Lionel Gelber Prize Board, announces the shortlist for the 2020 Lionel Gelber Prize as follows:
The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
Power to the People: How Open Technological Innovation is Arming Tomorrow’s Terrorists by Audrey Kurth Cronin
The Unsettling of Europe: How Migration Reshaped a Continent by Peter Gatrell
Roller-Coaster: Europe 1950 – 2017 by Ian Kershaw
The Light that Failed: A Reckoning by Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes
“Covering a range of essential global topics—from examinations of the fragile nature of liberty and democracy to the dark side of technological innovation, and comprehensive works of European history—these five superb books deserve to be read closely for the deep insights they provide. Thank you to our esteemed jurors for their insightful selections, which we are privileged to present, in collaboration with our partners,” said Charney.
This year’s shortlist was selected by Jury Chair Janice Gross Stein (Toronto) in collaboration with Jurors Cameron Abadi (Berlin), Sir Lawrence Freedman (London), Margaret MacMillan (Toronto and Oxford), Kishore Mahbubani (Singapore), and Jeffrey Simpson (Ottawa). The winner of the 2020 Lionel Gelber Prize will be announced on Tuesday, March 10 and give a public lecture in Toronto at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy on Monday, March 30, 2020.
This year marks the 30th Anniversary of the Lionel Gelber Prize, a literary award for the world’s best non-fiction book in English on foreign affairs that seeks to deepen public debate on significant international issues. The Lionel Gelber Prize was founded in 1989 by Canadian diplomat Lionel Gelber. A cash prize of $15,000 is awarded to the winner. The award is presented annually by The Lionel Gelber Foundation, in partnership with Foreign Policy magazine and the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.
Read more about these selections on the Lionel Gelber Prize website.
